Who I am Who I was Where I am Where I was
by alaskatrailmutt
Summary: At two-forty in the morning the sky isn't pitch black anymore. It almost appears to glow softly and get brighter. Some things happen to Layle when he's on a boat. Because, it's a boat and he's Layle.
1. Who I am Where I am

Disclaimer- I don't own Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers. If I did we would have a real ending. Not a "make up whatever ending you want" cop out ending.

Who I am, Who I was. Where I am. Where I was.

At two-forty in the morning the sky isn't pitch black anymore. It almost appears to glow softly and get brighter. The moon cast shadows on the wood decking of the ship. Not that there where many shadows to cast, up on the upper deck.

The emblemed coat would have given away the identity of the figure sitting on the floor of the deck. He sat criss cross, hands holding his chin in the soft moonlight. The only reason that his coat hadn't given him away was because no one was looking for him here. Well, no one was looking for him or they weren't looking very hard. The assumption was he was dead. That too was also a case to make.

Sighing, Layle thought a little more. Sleep was a hard thing to come by these days for him. There was a lot on his mind it seemed, and sleeping just wasn't one of those things. Stupid boat. It was boring here. But boring, for now, was probably a good thing. Too many questions where eating at him inside his head.

"Thanks" the girl had said, after he had gotten her hat. He had done it on a whim really and she had thanked him. Things might have gone sour if he was stuck on a boat where bearers where…Not appreciated. So far though, bearers didn't seem to be viewed as a threat by the people on the boat. Maybe they weren't from the mainland?

He hadn't sought any information about the ship. Not that that had stopped people from trying to tell him things. Later that evening in the dining hall the young girl with the hat had tried to sit next to him. She had waved to him with a plate of squash and nuts, looking hopeful. Standing awkwardly she tilted her chin at the seat on the bench next to him, voice hopeful.

"Can I…"

Layle had nodded a smile at his lips, tugging at the corners, commenting,

"You trying to thank me there little miss? For earlier."

The girl blushed a few shades of red nodding yes at first, but then nodding no after changing her mind.

Her fork meet her mouth and she chewed slowly a few times before calming herself. She was almost certain the bearer would have said no. She asked,

"You know where this ship is going right?"

She sounded hopeful. He frowned,

"No…"

Looking confused she started,

"It's going to-"

Layle cut in,

"Honestly, I don't really wanta know. Lets see how long it takes to get there, and I'll be surprised okay?"

Confused the girl pouted,

"You don't want to know?"

Layle smiled and got up from the table.

"Nope."

Brushing his knees off he added,

"I want it to be a surprise. That's more fun right? You can tell me when we get there, it'll be our little secret game."

That he finished with a wink.

The girl liked the idea of a game. She was protecting a secret. Enthusiastically she clapped.

"Okay, Okay!"


	2. Not really like everyone else

His cabin reminded him of the rooms on the Selkie train. Small spaced but efficient. Thinking of the train made him think of two Selkies in particular. He almost stopped to wonder what they were doing, before he caught himself. It didn't matter what they were doing. It had never mattered. He didn't want to think about those sort of things. Home things. Knowing Keiss he had probably given up on Layle's return. Belle had obviously been crushing on him since the start and it was a relief not to have her big mouth around. She had probably just forgotten about him. Out of sight out of mind.

Rolling over on the mattress he couldn't help but realize he had never really been close to any of them. He hadn't even wanted to get close to them. He didn't even miss them. He didn't miss anyone. They weren't the kind of people that if he had a choice, that he would spend ALL his time with. He couldn't imagine wanting to spending ALL his time with anyone.

He couldn't imagine himself ever sitting at the Selkie tables on the guild ship, eating and merrily getting drunk. He never really quite fit in with the Clavat at home… He could dance as well as any Clavat. At dances every weekend he always seemed to be the one with-out a partner, even if one girl was left to dance with. And he didn't hate the Lilty, but he certainly didn't like them any. And the Yukes, although he had only known one, where missing a certain something. Good humor maybe. So he had never fit in anywhere. He knew deep down it wasn't only because he was a bearer.

It didn't bother Layle though. If Belle had any point, it was that handling things solo was easier. Layle had been handling things that way for a long time.


	3. Really? Do I Have To Think?

The sun over the ocean was the best part about being on the ship. The puffy white clouds where a close second best. After being there on the ship a week, musing, remembering, he couldn't help but wonder what he was supposed to do. He always had something to do. It was getting…Too peaceful. He could always help with heavy lifting. Help with dishes. Help the passengers. Help with something. Part of him just didn't feel up to it.

The universe was giving him time to think. He just didn't want to.

Sitting in his cabin on the bed, with his goggles on a desk and his jacket half hazard tossed on a chair, a tear rolled down his face and meet his mouth. The expression on his face was hard, disappointed, and thoughtful. This was why, in the end, he didn't want to have time to think.

He couldn't decide if he missed things. Keisse's assurance. Belle's flirting. Home. Or, if he totally hated them. Keisse's lack of understanding. Belle's stuck up attitude. He couldn't figure out how he felt about himself sometimes. There was a conflict, his opinion and what those around him had told him all his life. It only bothered him when he took the time to think about it.

He had told Keiss about being a bearer that,

"It doesn't matter, we're just like everybody else".

Layle had been telling himself that his whole life, that he was just like everyone else. But with the principle, and everything that had happened with Jegran and Aminatellia, it was harder to convince himself that being a bearer was just as simple as being nothing.


	4. Breaking Lighters

DISCLAIMER: Yep. Still own nothing. I broke this into chapters. Sorry if the ordering doesn't make sense. Writing with Post Concussion Syndrom, so meh. Yes I know, I spelled some names wrong. By the way, you guys hear about Kingdom Hearts 3? SO EXCITED!

"Hmmmnnnnnh."

Layle was thinking. He stood by the railing looking over the ocean, during some wee hour of the night. Again. He seemed to be out here a lot lately at night. Keiss had left a pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket. Rhythmically Layle would slide one out, roll it in his hand and put it back in the case. He wanted to smoke them, sort of. It wasn't he wanted an addiction problem. But, Keiss had always made it look so good. Layle sighed and laughed, that day.

"Stupid partner's still bothering me."

And he snapped the cigarette in half before smashing it back into the pack.

Every-time the Clavat thought of his life back in the Lilty Kingdom he broke a cigarette. In three days he had broken eight cigarettes. Then three the next day. After another two days four more. When he got to breaking twelve there wasn't room in the pack and tobacco leaked out the sides. Two days, five more. After ten days he opened a drawer on the desk and thrown the pack in with a slam of the drawer.


	5. Pockets In Time (BORED)

Disclaimer- I still ownnnnnn….Nothing.

Layle's most treasured object, and most useful was his jacket. His jacket seemed to have a lot of souvenirs from another place and time though. It seemed another person, some other version of himself was documented in the pockets of the coat. It was beginning to feel like those things might have happened to someone else, even if he knew that wasn't the case. A lot had happened in too short an amount of time. Since now he was removed from time, and those people, he felt he was moving on a different path than before. Time was no longer straight, but it went forwards, backwards and stood still. The sun setting was the only documentation of the achievement of living another day on this cargo ship. There was, out of everything in his coat, nothing anyone had actually given to him as a gift. The coat itself was a gift, from Cid…Sort-of.

Layle had gotten the coat as repayment back when Cid was Chief engineer of the Lilty Kingdom. The Kingdom paid well enough, but Cid wasn't someone for keeping his money under check. Cid always put any money he got straight into another side project. Cid was the third job, actually technically the fourth, now that Layle thought about it, that Layle had had after leaving his worst partner ever. Not that at thirteen he had known any better than to get involved with Blaze.

His parents had shipped him off to the monastery, they said it was the best way for him. The safest way for him to live in the world, that's how that whole thing with Blaze had started. The religion hadn't helped him then, because he hadn't believed in it. Why believe in religion, when your parents wouldn't believe in you enough to keep you around? Belief tied you down, it meant you invested yourself, had to make something of yourself, hold yourself to a standard.

Layle invested himself more than anyone in other people's problems, that was enough investment for him. He didn't have anything he was actually invested in personally himself, some sort of goal or dream. He had quit dreaming, if he had ever done it in the first place.

But the jacket. After working and helping Cid out for three months, at fifteen years old, he hadn't been paid. Layle was fine with not getting paid, Cid more than helped Layle with information on getting other jobs that did pay, but he needed money. Even as a kid, it wasn't getting money that made him take jobs. It was the fact he needed money for other things, like clothes, and eating, and shelter that made him take jobs. He worked out of necessity. Not out of wanting money.

Cid had needed help with another engine prototype, and Layle in response, to not getting three months pay, shook his head and crossed his arms. Confused Cid tried to get it out of the Clavat. Layle was normally more than over enthusiastic to help Cid out. And Cid really needed this engine tested, he was getting close to developing something big. Layle opened his mouth, sighing, and had pointed to five engines in the room, three blue print designs, and eighteen cans filled with nuts, bolts, spanners, and various other found objects. Layle could only take so much.

"I did all of that for you the last three months since I walked in the door. Filled orders. Done plans… You owe me."

Turning on his heel, Layle had left Cid's shop angrily. What did Cid just forget? Or think he was a stupid bearer that owed the world something for being born?

Three days later at Hush-hush pond, Layle has gotten a package from a mail moogle. It was wrapped in light brown paper, it looked like the kind he and Cid had spread to protect the floor from oil, with a black bow on top. Layle hadn't gotten a gift since…He couldn't even remember, and at his young age that alone made him want to throw the gift into the pool, even if that wasn't the smartest thing to do. Of course, it said it was from Cid. Cid was the only person he had anything resembling a friendship with at that time, if you could call it even that. The note underneath the wrapping had read,

"This coat used to be my father's. He gave it to me when he sent me to go to Rivelgauge for the first time. It wouldn't fit you properly now, but you'll grow into it. It helped me out many times on that trail, I know you've done the trail many times for me already. It doesn't fit me now, obviously, but as a Clavat, you may be able to keep it for a long time. I hope this is enough to repay you. –Cid.

P.S. Come to the shop soon, I still need your help Crystal Bearer."

He hadn't put it on right away, obviously. Layle hadn't. And it hadn't fit half as well as it should have. The sleeves had to be rolled in three times and the bottom on the coat reached his mid thy. The chain-mail had reached past his elbow. Somehow though, the half put together, scrappy look fit him at the time. Fit him every step of the way he had grown into the coat. And he loved that coat regardless. He still loved it now in a way.


	6. All I Have Is What I've Got

Disclaimer- In this chapter lets see what Layle owns! BECAUSE I STILL DON'T OWN ANYTHINGS.

Besides the coat, and the cigarettes in the drawer, Layle didn't own a ton of things he realized. He didn't even know exactly what he owned anymore, so on one rainy afternoon on the ship he had decided to take stock.

He knew he owned two yellow shirts, the jacket, a pair of pants, and the pair of shorts he was now wearing. The two shirts where folded out the end of the bed, the pair of pants underneath them. He had just washed these in the sink yesterday and had them outside to dry. He owned his jacket, that was hanging on the chair by the door. He had two pairs of shoes, one sandaled, one not. Those where neatly stowed underneath the chair with the jacket on it. Three pairs of socks, he had learned with all the walking he did he needed more than one the hard way. The small belt bag that usually held clothes was set on the seat of the chair.

Out loud he questioned,

"What else…?"

Three rings, those had been a pain to get, two amulets. One pair of earrings he was currently wearing. The googles, also on the seat and the wallet in his front pocket. Was that really all he had? There was the crystal idol, now useless that he had "borrowed" from Belle. That brought his count up to nineteen things. Was he forgetting something?

The cigarettes. He had those to count. Two of them weren't broken out of...Well now the pack was too messed up to tell how many. Twenty? Remembering he hadn't checked the inside pocket of the bag, he went to the chair and started cleaning it out. Three issues of MVA news. Six bolts. Nine cool spaces. One antique. He had been meaning to collect a dart board and some other found objects to make a better ring. A stuffed moogle. Now that there was something useful. A plastic tea cup from the meeting with Althea. Hadn't he had that red crystal from Keiss…?


	7. Being A Kid At 17

Disclaimer- Blah. Blah. Blah. Yay I own nothing. I have more chapters, but I'm not going to upload any more unless someone PM or Reviews me to say they want me to. Why? Because I feel like it.

He stretched. It was better than nothing, he guessed. But he felt like he should have had something he didn't. Whatever. He touched his earrings. He remembered Keiss making him get them. Keiss had boldly forced Layle into a piercing parlor in the capital on the Bearers seventeenth birthday.

"You're my partner half the time right, Bearer?"

Layle had been shoved in to a seat watching Keisse's grin flit on his Selkie face.

"Well when you become a man, Selkies get earrings." He winked. "And after our last two jobs I'd say we are hard broiled men. My partner has to be an equal right? So as the nice guy I am this is going to be done properly."

And the gun had stung when it went into Layle's ears, with Keiss pulling the trigger. All he had to say at Keisse's laughter was,

"You Selkies have a lot of weird traditions…",

while he tugged on his red ear lobes. Clavats didn't do anything when you became an adult, it was the natural way of things like the sun and plants growing in a field, not something to make a large deal about. Of course, Keiss hadn't paid, because he was a Selkie, which was why he had humiliated Layle by doing it when the owner of the shop, also a Selkie, was on cigarette break.

The thing that amused Layle, was after working with Keiss for a year off and on, they just stopped working together suddenly. They didn't start working together again until he was twenty, and again that was on and off up until Jegran's whole deal. But after two years of not working together regularly, neither of them had changed all that much. He guessed now in retrospect the reason he had stopped seeing Keiss was because of Keisse's whole, "High commander" dream, but he hadn't thought much of it at the time.

Over the years they had talked, and seen each other, but jobs just never worked out. Layle worked more with Cid, and Keiss more with Vigaili. That was what had brought them back to working together in the first place, Cid had gotten himself kicked out of the court and Layle had some left over jobs at Vigailis. Not that Layle worked there with the Selkies often, the pay was nothing but information nine times out of ten. Yet, at the time information was exactly what he was after, and some job was better than no job.


	8. Waves of emotion

Waves of Emotion

(Still don't own)

And at some point in remembering a wave had hit Layle. He had started to cry.

Layle hated to cry. He hated it more than anything. More than the fact there had been a war. More than the many people who never took him seriously, or saw him as a person. More than the expectations of that the world put on him but never thanked him for. Those things bothered him, but not very much. It was rain on a guard job, made things inconvenient, unpleasant. That was really all. It never bothered him on a personal level.

The tears just rolled down his face, and he tried to stop. He had tried not to start. It just happened. Like everything in his life he couldn't control, it had just happened. Like everything else it was inconvenient but something to do. It was the only thing that he cared not to do on a personal level.

Thinking about the past made things difficult, because it took Layle away from where he was and made him look at how he had ended up there. What had lead him to this point.

The rest of that day, he hadn't left the cabin. He had almost punched a wall, and kicked a chair, and pulled his hair out, but in the end he opted for crying with his head between his knees. Opted in the end, for just giving up that day and not coming out so that he wouldn't hurt anyone. As a kid he knew if he got upset, things got broken, people got hurt. That wasn't any good. Usually he tried to laugh things off, sardonically, than let any of it really touch him anywhere personally. It was better that way. But now he wasn't even sure why he was upset. He figured it would stop when he was ready.

It took a while to stop.

Layle's head throbbed when he opened his eyes. The room was dark and most of him wanted to curse out into the room. He didn't have anywhere to go or anything to do, and having fallen apart bothered him. His mouth was dry and his lips where cracked. After laying there for a bit he got up and scratched his cheek. Mockingly, to no one, he said,

" Hey Layle, what was that all about? Being sentimental again?".

The last time he had cried had been when his parents had dropped him off at the monastery.

The next few days he was down. Layle tried not to be, but he admitted to himself that, no, these where not his best days. The hat girl had leaned over the railing of the deck next to where he was standing, chattering joyfully. It was a nice sunny day, with a small brezze. He really wanted to come up here an be alone, but she was following him around like a puppy dog. It was flattering. Part of him couldn't enjoy it, laugh at it that day.

"Soooo",

she sing song-ed,

"Matey! Where should we be off to?"

He had looked at her blankly for a minute, he wanted to reply something fatalistic, or stupid. Like, let's go to hell. Instead he smiled a small sad smile a commented,

"Why not Chocobo island?"

She laughed and he smiled walking away.


	9. Layle gives a momento

Layle Gives A Memento

In the mess hall Layle sat at a table alone with the moogle in his lap. The girl came over, it was a habit she was developing on the ship and she pointed to it.

"That's really cute! Is it for someone your going to meet?"

She didn't really believe that Layle didn't know where they were going. He was an adult, he had to know.

"Oh!", she squealed,

"is it for your girlfriend ?". Sitting across from him she noticed Layle's eyes shift away and then to the floor. He laughed.

"No, silly."

"Who's it for then? They're really lucky! Who's the lucky person?"

He picked up the moogle and put it in her lap,

"It's for you, as a present, you lucky person!"

The little girls eyes went wide.

"Really? It's for ME?"

Layle laughed,

"Yep. Just for you little missy."

She smiled and reached across the table to hug him,

"THANK YOU BEARER!"

"No problem."

She happily played with the moogle on the table the rest of the evening and Layle watched her.

"Are you gonna name it?"

He laughed through his words. She nodded vigorously.

"YEAH!"

"Well, what's its name?"

She seemed to think hard for a moment.

"…What's your name? I could name it after you right, ?"

Layle laughed harder at this.

"Y-yeah sure. You sure you want to do that little girl?"

Sternly she shook her head,

"Yeah! Why wouldn't I? Everyone knows crystal bearers are the best".

Layle stared at her for a minute in surprised. That was weird.

"Okay, well, I'm Layle."

He surely wasn't anywhere normal that was for sure.


	10. What's left inbetween

What's Left In-between

There was always time in between jobs when Layle didn't work, when he had made enough money off the last job so that he could take a break and not work for a while. So far, his time on the ship had been the longest he had ever gone without working. When he wasn't running around on the next chaotic job, it was usually winter. Things across the kingdom slowed down then. He would usually crash at whatever job contact's place he could.

Once he had spent a month with Cid for the winter, but Cid was driving Layle crazy by the end of it. For a few months another year he had bounced between the abandoned farmhouse in the dessert and sleeping in the capital. The capital had been problematic due to the fact guards usually chewed you out and robbed you. Another month he had agreed to work at the winery during the next summer for a room. That might be the best year Layle had spent when he didn't have any work. Once he spent winter with the Selkies, but that had been slightly awkward the whole time for Layle.

Lazy Days

On his time off, Layle liked to do things by himself. Sometimes he would go to the Selkie beach and wade in the water. He, occasionally, would help the vineyard with grapes. Standing in a large tub in his shorts stepping on grapes was always fun. By the end of it the workers would end up slinging grapes at each other. He would ride a chocobo to nowhere in particular. In the spring sometimes he would go to the cherry festival at cherry checkpoint and watch the free concerts. Some days he would lie in fields of grass and stare at the sky. Every once in a while, he would help the rest of the Clavat harvest wheat, the work was done with a scythe and took four days a year. Or harvest mushrooms with the moogles. Or a bunch of other pick up hobbies he had, like clearing myrrh streams.

His favorite hobby recently had been ghost hunting. He only saw five ghosts, not counting the ones in the commoners graveyard. One had been in the Eye of the Rock. The next had been easy to find, waiting for the Selkie train in bridge town. After that, in the monastery. Which seemed weird because the ghost looked like….Well never mind that. The next ghost had, of course been ON the Selkie train on the way to prison sands. The last was on the shuttle ride to the airship dock. It had taken Layle a few weeks on and off working on the letters to finish the hunt.

After that his favorite hobby had been monster hunting. He tried to close every misma


	11. That was Jessie's girl

That Was Jessie's Girl

One year the vineyard had done so well, all the workers had received a bottle of wine as payment. Most of the Clavat where thrilled by this, but Layle at eighteen, one of the older workers there, wasn't thrilled.

Layle didn't drink very often. For a lot of reasons. Like the main one being when he was drinking he forgot their where rules about using his powers. That usually got him into A LOT of trouble. So he had stared at the wine and asked the head wine mistress if he could maybe have his actual payment instead. She had assured him that the wine was worth way more than what Layle would get in monetary value. Plus what Clavat didn't want to drink? Really? Crystal Bearers.

Layle would have tried to sell the wine, but given his welcome in the capital, he didn't think that was an option. So after holding on to it a few months he gave up and decided to drink some of it. Before some Selkie sniffed it out and stole it off his person. He had gotten a fourth of a bottle in before he had decided to give up in it. He wasn't any good at drinking, even if he could hold his liquor well enough.

Just as he put the cap on the bottle a Clavat woman had walked up to him. "Isn't that from the harvest this summer?" It was winter at the time, and most of the Clavats had drunken their wine with in the month they had received it. Layle had looked at her for a minute and given a small, "Yeah, so?". She was about his age and she sat down next to him. Shyly she had asked if she could have some of it. Layle retorted if she wanted some she could pay for it. "I don't have any money though." "Then I guess your not getting any." Sadly she made a move to get up, and at that second Layle changed his mind "Here." He laughed and handed it to her. "I don't even want this. But you owe me a debt, got it?" She had looked at him in the moonlight by the stream. "What kind of debt?" "I don't know. Something. Someday." She had smiled.

His face had been flushed due to the wine and he felt warm despite the cold wind outside. He wondered if he would regret this night as she sat down to drink the bottle next to him.

He had seen the Clavat he had given his wine to a few months later. He had been on the trail of a missing person job from the Selkies. She had seen him in the red woods by the hot springs and made her way over to him smiling. From behind him she had tapped Layle on the shoulder. He had whipped around and was about to push her off the nearest ledge, thinking she was a monster. But he had realized who she was and stopped with his hand in the air. He smiled, "Here to repay that debt?" She had winked, "Don't you know it."

For a few months after meeting her in those woods, that she had kept herself around. She wasn't a mercenary, or an informant, or anything really. She spent time chatting to him on the train while he looked out the window. He had asked her one evening, "What exactly do you do?" And she had laughed in her pretty little laugh and touched his arm. "Follow cute bearers around, I guess." And she had blushed. He hadn't been crazy about her in the end, this Clavat women, but at the time he liked her enough and he had thought that meant something. He wouldn't call her a partner, or a close friend, but she had been there and some days that was a nice thing. And, it gave him something to do on his days off and someone to focus on so that he didn't have to think about himself.

Then it stopped being a nice thing. She started getting in his face. She started wanting something permanent from him. She started saying she loved him. She started getting in the way of jobs. She started pressing him and saying he could do something normal with his life. He had started wanting to believe her.

She wouldn't leave him alone for weeks on end. He had stopped randomly running into her and seeing her for a few days, to never having days when he didn't see her. She was getting on his nerves. At first she had been a welcomed entertainment. Now it seemed like he was her entertainment. He had fell for it, he guessed.

What ended it, was an argument. She had told Layle that as a crystal bearer, he out of anyone should believe in the principle. He told her he didn't need to believe in anything. She asked how he could live that way. He had explained it was very simple, and that he just didn't think about it. She yelled and things turned into a shouting match. Layle had started getting mad and a few boulders in the dessert ravine had started lifting around him. He looked at the boulder raising behind her, and realized how many months he had spent being used. He wanted to take her out with them, or throw her into a river.

Then he disengaged. He had cared about someone, who he didn't even care about in the beginning just because she cared about him. Layle felt angry and foolish and younger than his now adult years. So he told her off, and he told her if she ever showed up in his face again he couldn't promise anything good would happen. Then he set the stones down and ran, all that time he had been trying to have a more normal life with her. Have a relationship, like most people. He wasn't most people. It hadn't made him happy. It hadn't helped him any. He had tried to be normal. Really.

It had been a long time since he had remembered that girl. It wasn't really important in the end, that girl. He could barely remember her name now. It explained things he guessed. Why he hadn't even bothered taking advantage of Belle. Of why he eneded arguments as soon as they started. Because their wasn't really a point.


	12. I wanted to play another round

I Wanted To Play Another Round

The ship had a small community game room. It featured an air-hockey table, crystalvision, some board games and a crystalradio. He had talked the hat girl into coming down to play air-hockey. The score was ten to three. Layle had three.

"You're just letting me win!"

The hat girl whined,

"There is NO WAY a crystal bearer is THIS bad at air-hockey!"

"Really now little miss?"

And at that Layle scored a point.

"No fair!"

"That was very fair. Miss not-paying-attention."

She stuck out her tongue.

After three rounds Layle stopped letting her off easy.

"I'm not going to LET you win now. So now you're going to need to focus.

By the end of it three kids were taking Layle on at once.

"How are you beating us?"

Layle had smiled.

"I'm just that good I guess."

In awe they had all said,

"Wow. Crystal Bearers!"

Looking For Trouble

When Layle was nineteen he had spent a month following the tracks of an ancient legend. It had talked about a town around a place called Fields of Fume. In the legends the crystals had to be purified every year by Myrrh trees. Caravans would go out in groups to get these trees. At some point, a black knight and a person named Gurdy and his brother Hurdy had gotten involved. The story had never been told to him. Most children knew some old stories of the past but Layle wasn't very familiar with any of them. In order to learn what he could about the myth he had to go to the Royal Library. Unfortunately the trail had ended with out result.

From what Layle could tell there wasn't a Clavat Crystal on this part of the continent. To make matters worse there probably wasn't any real treasure involved. So he had looked up more myths and legends and any related subject to try to find SOMETHING. Some fast way to get a big payoff with a whole lot of gil. This had led him to tales about the void.

Later now thinking on it maybe the Yuke sky city had taken an existence between the void and the normal world.

Reading about the void and general history he could find Layle was looking for SOMETHING. What he wasn't sure. What he HAD found was Librarian moogles get really, really mad if you break a vase. He had accidentally knocked one over with his elbow when he was at the small desk below the artifacts stand. Paying off the one vase had taken him over a month.

Keiss after one job asked Layle,

"What would you do if you never had to work. If you had so much money you were practically a Lilty?"

They were at Fountain Park, Keiss on a bench with an iced tea in his hand. Layle hadn't eaten because he was trying to save enough money to buy another pair of shoes. After the whole Library mishap he was more careful about how he spent his money even if that had been eight months ago. Layle scratched his cheek,

"I don't know…I can't even picture having that much money as a Clavat… Invest it in something? Oh, I know. I'd buy the biggest container of apples I could find, and five pounds of grapes. Then use them to lure poor Clavats to work in my imaginary fields Litly style. Then I'd lure Selkies into my imaginary mansion with tales of treasure . Then I would pay them to steal more money for me at the price of getting them out of jail, since if I had that much money I could have a council with the Princess and receive political authority. After that I'd make up some kind of law about how crystal bearers should be able to do whatever they want and never work again. Hey, if I had that much money I could be king if I wanted to."

Layle picked up a stone by his foot and threw it in the fountain, causing a guard to look him over.

Keiss shrugged,

"Okay, okay. I get it. So even if you had all the money in the world, maybe that wouldn't change anything."

"It would make people resent me more!"

At that time in his life Layle had been annoyed and growingly frustrated with peoples overzealous ability to blame him for everything.

Layle continued,

"Where would I even get any money Keiss? I can't even buy shoes and my lunch! When you contract me you have to put, 'and one other member' because otherwise no one will hire us!"

Keiss had forgotten that really, nothing HAD changed for Layle in there time apart. Layle was still struggling on and off. Frowning Keiss walked to a trash bin and threw his drink away.

"My bad Layle. Seriously. When did you start acting like a girl?"

Layle punched Keiss in the arm, laughing,

"Just shut up Keiss. Shut up. What would you do?"

"Me? Hmn. Well let's assume I'm High Commander. I'd use the money to buy an island and half the Lilty Kingdom for the Selkies. Then I'd spend every afternoon fishing and being praised for how much better I am the Vigali."

Layle laughed,

"No wayyyy. Keiss."

"Well bearer, it's not like I'd have to do jobs with you anymore so maybe you could be my personal servant. I'd pay you to do dangerous stuff to entertain me and train you to act like a normal person."

They spent the rest of the evening trying to top each others what-I-would-do story.

Layle came up with the best one, which was actually his honest story.

"I would live just like I do right now. Only I'd be eating three meals a day and have nicer equipment and not do any work unless it sounded really fun. I wouldn't tell anyone if I had that much money, because a certain Selkie might try to steal some of it. Oh, and I'd buy a chocobo. I'm sick of walking everywhere. No better yet, I'll own a freaking airship."

"A crystal bearer owning a airship?"

They both chimed in,

"ALL RIGHT!"


	13. Telescopes at high tide

Telescopes at High-tide

After two and a half months stuck on the boat Layle was getting restless. On the eighty-second day, they saw land. Layle almost wanted to make the ship go faster, but he held back. The little girl ran up to him.

" Look ! We're here!".

He grinned.

"And where is here hmmn?"

"Guess!"

"Uhmmmmmm. I don't know you tell me."

"But Crystal Bearers know everything!"

"Not this one."

He winked. Land came closer every second, but he couldn't tell from the distance.


End file.
